The tin cup went flying. The sound of his toe hitting it made a first hollow plunk that repeated three times as the cup bounded and rolled to a final stop, alerting anyone nearby that something was moving about in front. It wasn’t until the first tumble that Philip realized what the sound was. His happy memory ended with the sinking feeling of dread.
The next thing Philip heard was an expletive. At only a slight distance.
The thing after that was someone else’s expletive. Nearby, within spitting distance of where he had frozen.
The loud discharge of a musket momentarily brightened the scene enough to tell Philip that he’d crossed over into the pickets of his own side. The discharge pointed away from where he’d just come, illuminating the field and a man lying prone but a few feet away, who fired and then turned as he noticed Philip standing so close that he rolled over in a hurry to reload and then lay still in fear. Other shots rang out every few feet.
“Sergeant!” the man yelled as Philip crouched down and the bright flash evaporated. “Rebels!”
Return fire zipped overhead as the enemy pickets came alive, muzzle flashes peppering the distant tree line like fireflies.
“Chaplain, 21st Ohio,” Philip called out. In the brief flashes of discharge, Philip could see that the man he’d disturbed was still frozen in panic, holding his rifle upon his chest in the act of reloading. “I’m separated from the regiment.”
“Shit, Parson; liked to have shot you walkin’ in the dark through our picket line. What’s a featherbed fighter doin’ out yonder?” the man replied, his voice unsteady.
“What’s going on?” A man ran up and almost tripped over Philip.
“Him, sneakin’ through our line!” exclaimed the jittery soldier.
“Cease fire,” the sergeant called out, “cease fire.” Turning to Philip, he snapped, “You cause this?”
“Just me, Sergeant; Chaplain 21st Ohio. Was separated during the retreat,” Philip replied as calmly as he could.
“You nearly got yourself shot, walking through our picket line like that!” the man retorted. “Come along, get you into the rear. Army’s pulling back beyond the railroad and the pike. We the last what’s left this side of the road and the Round Forest. Just you keep moving that way. Not likely to find your regiment in this dark, but the divisions is reforming beyond the road and the railroad embankment.”
“What unit is this?” Philip asked.
“Second Battalion, Pioneers,” came the terse reply.
“You know where the 3rd is?”
“Down to the left, but they may have already pulled back. They was out digging rifle pits earlier. You find the Chicago Trade Battery an’ you find the 3rd; they was on the left of the battery earlier.”
“Good, thank you, Sergeant.” Philip started to walk in the direction indicated.
“You like to get shot at by them if you wander too far,” the man called out.
Ignoring the warning, Philip walked some fifteen minutes and tried to parallel the Nashville pike, but he never ran across the guns. He also never ran across a soul—living, that is. If the 3rd Battalion Pioneers were out here, they were invisible. More likely they were not out where the sergeant thought they were. No one was. If the enemy decided to push forward before first light as they had the morning of the battle, they would roll right over the 2nd Battalion’s picket line, taking it in the flank.
Philip turned about and took a quick step to retrace his path, but twenty minutes found him encountering the same patches of random corpses and no living beings, not even where he judged his encounter with the picket to have been. If he listened closely, he could hear the coursing of the river off to his right. The 2nd Battalion had also moved back. He was alone.
Keeping his quick step, Philip moved in the direction of the pike, angling toward the right where he thought the best chance of running into his own side once more would be had.
Cutting across a cotton field, he spied a darkened shape looming in front of him. The Cowan house. Conspicuous where it stood near the Nashville pike, a magnet for any and every officer to encroach upon for a headquarters, it was now in ruins as Philip stepped closer. It was also an uneven mass of humanity, the still living squirming amidst the dead. The house had been caught between the foes, and the ground around it was covered in bodies, mostly Confederate by the look of the uniforms.
The house had been a majestic two-story domicile, built in the familiar Southern style for a large farmstead. Not too rustic and rough, but not the grandiose Greek style of the plantations. When the 21st Ohio had marched past it two days before, the yard had been nicely fenced off, with white picket boards, a flower garden, and a path leading up to the front steps. Now, the smell of acrid smoke hung heavy in the air, and parts of the house were still burning, though in a smoldering process by this time. Portions of the top floors had been carried away by cannon shot, and boards, plaster, and pieces of wood furniture littered the ground. The picket fencing was all but gone, the garden trampled. Rebel dead lay thickly about the grounds. Several battle lines had moved through multiple times before retreating.
Philip tried to avoid getting too close, fearing lest someone was still alive or occupying the house from either side and in a jumpy attitude. Beyond the house was the Round Forest.
The sounds of the river were growing louder, as were the sounds of voices and wheeled traffic. Breaking into a semi-trot, Philip left the carnage of the Cowan house behind him and hurried toward the forest perimeter.
“Halt, don’t come no further,” a voice called out. Philip stumbled, startled by the suddenness of the order.
“Chaplain, 21st Ohio,” Philip called in reply, holding his arms up.
“What you doin’ out there?” another voice called out.
Philip was several yards from the trees and so should have expected to be challenged, but his enthusiasm to reach safety had let his guard down. His heart raced as he answered. “Separated, getting back.”
“Get yore ass in here, Parson,” another man growled in a forceful, low tone. “You wake up them Rebel skirmishers, we in for a hot one!”
Philip quickly made his way into the trees and into the presence of half a dozen men, all transfixed by their sudden visitor.
“I’ll be damned,” one of the men exclaimed as Philip was hustled further into the trees. “Pearson?”
The voice was familiar but one Philip hadn’t heard in a long while. Despite having been with the 21st Ohio for two months with the whole army stationary in Nashville, Philip hadn’t gone to call upon his old pards in the 24th Ohio but once. Duties, and one regiment or the other always being out on picket detail, had kept him from being sociable. He had told himself he could go and visit another day.
“Johnny? Johnny Henderson?” Philip asked as he tried to pierce the dark in the direction he was being addressed from.
“Philip!” Johnny cried and leapt upon with him a bear hug.
Suddenly familiar faces surrounded him. He’d stumbled upon his old company. He was unexpectedly home again.
After a few moments of shaking hands with men he’d known very well or barely at all before leaving the regiment back in May, he suddenly found one name missing.
“Sammy?” Philip asked as he looked around. The moment of silence was all he needed to know in answer to his question.
Chapter 19
No Reprieve from Death
Philip was stunned. He’d seen the action taking place when Miller’s brigade was first assaulted and forced to retreat to prevent themselves from being cut off. But the immensity of the loss had been shielded from him. Until now, Philip had just assumed the regiment and the brigade had safely made it to the rear.
But now, the losses had names. The list given by the men staggered Philip, weakening his knees. He finally sat down with a heavy thud.
“Colonel Jones?” Philip asked weakly. The man who had commanded the regiment since it marched from Ohio, the man who had shaken his hand warmly and brought news o
f Philip’s discharge and orders to proceed to Columbus to accept his commission as chaplain. The man who had ably led the regiment at Shiloh.
“Killed; killed trying to rally the regiment as we fell back,” came Johnny’s reply.
“Major Terry too, right after he took command and we fell into line with Grose’s brigade,” another man added.
“Then Captain Weller,” added Johnny, “in the first assault on our line near the railroad. They came up close. Then Captain Cockerel fell wounded.”
Sammy Henson was the worst name of all to find its way into the narrative. Sammy, Johnny, Philip, and Mule: the four men had lived and marched and fought beside one another until the move on Corinth in May. Theo “Mule” Mueller had been the first to die, drowned in a freak storm and the flooding of the bridge the regiment had been helping to build across the marshy washes between Pittsburg Landing and Corinth. Then Philip himself had been removed from the mess by his own request for a commission. Now Sammy was removed forever by God’s hand.
Philip put a hand to his head and exhaled slowly, letting the hand slide down to his neck, looking out past the living into the field of death beyond.
“We retreated in disorder after having been moved forward and waiting an hour in line, but they moved us too far forward and the enemy came in three columns. We must have stood five minutes before ordered to fall back. Sammy went down at the first fire. He still out there,” Johnny recounted, his tone heavy with grief. He stood with hands in his pockets and a weary expression on his face.
Philip took it in silently, wondering which still form out there might be Sammy’s. No more acid-tongued Samuel, no more sarcastic quips. No more of the man Philip regarded as balancing out Johnny’s New England sensibilities and fervent abolitionism with moderate southern Ohio “live and let live” philosophy.
“We fall back and form line by Grose’s brigade, with the railroad embankment at our backs, the Round Forest in front, and the enemy pressing in close. Artillery batteries all about and belching fire.” Johnny paused to wipe his nose and sniffle. “Philip, I tell you that you never did see such violence before. Men falling out all around, the enemy only stopping once they’d been punished too much to press further, staying they ground until compelled to leave by sheer numbers of them falling out. They did it that way four times!”
Johnny shook his head and appeared lost in thought. “They finally quit trying two hours before sundown. If you could see the ground in front, it’s covered in their dead. They must have had the devil himself whipping them forward. I’ve never seen such fighting.”
Johnny fell silent finally.
“All those names,” Philip muttered. He felt a wave of nausea and emotion well up from the pit of his stomach. He looked down at his bloodied front and then quickly away.
“All those names of men I knew, now gone from the rolls. All in less than a day,” Philip croaked in a quavering voice. A darkness fell over him, a deep, depressing mood. What had it all been for?
The newness of being a chaplain had faded quickly into frustration and struggle with Neibling over ministering to the regiment. The trip home to accept his commission, the cold reception from Elizabeth Harper, the criminal behavior of the 7th Ohio Cavalry in their desire to avenge one of their own upon their Confederate prisoners—all of the things he’d experienced since leaving the 24th Ohio would seem to have been for little. Had he been in the ranks, had he stayed with his pards, he might have fallen as so many had or been laid low to suffer. But he would have been with them.
The list of pards was getting smaller and smaller too. Johnny sat down next to Philip and studied his grubby fingers.
“Did you see Sammy go down?” Philip asked after some minutes of silence.
“Yes. We was being forced back and trying to backpedal when he was hit. Lots of men was going down, and we just had to leave those who couldn’t move to the enemy. Sammy wasn’t moving once he was hit; most agree he was dead before he hit the ground. Hard to say for sure. We was all too feverishly loading and moving to take a hard look. We stood the rest of the time back by the embankment, then moved forward after dark to occupy the Round Forest to watch the enemy. Sammy somewhere out there.” Johnny motioned with his head.
“And lots of Rebel dead,” Philip added. “They’re dead all over the ground. Was almost taken coming this way—just glad the army was still here.”
“Barely,” came the sardonic reply. Johnny was always the gloomy one. He brightened a little. “How’s my future brother-in-law?”
“Paul? Was doing well when I saw him before the army left Nashville. I was looking for his battalion after nearly being shot by the pickets of the 2nd Battalion Pioneers before making my way here. They was pulling back, but I didn’t find him or anyone from the 3rd. If he’s still alive, I’ll not know for some days I suppose.”
“I tried to talk father out of trying to marry Louise off like that, but he would not hear of anyone claiming his daughter’s hand who was not proving himself a virtuous man in some way,” Johnny replied, sounding embarrassed.
“It was Paul’s choice. He’s a corporal now. Has taken to army life better than I thought he would.”
“And you—you like being a chaplain?”
“I thought it would suit me and be a safer place, but it hasn’t been any less dangerous. The 21st Ohio is a mixed lot, much more political than the 24th ever was, and the officers a divided cabal of antislavery and proslavery sentiments. I’m stuck in the middle at times.”
“Can’t see how’s anyone in this army proslavery, not after this year of war and watching the enemy come at us with a fury that tells me they all rabid slavers,” Johnny said bitterly, assuming a belligerent air.
“Can’t say; the two Rebels we captured near Germantown who’d escaped from Camp Chase weren’t slavers. One was positively against the slavocracy, and the other was just a youth who volunteered to defend his new country. His family gave charity to slaves and free blacks in Mississippi. I tell you, it’s not as cut-and-dried as we’d like to think on the other side.”
“Anyone who put on that uniform a slaver or fighting for them even if they think they not; no gettin’ past the obvious,” Johnny said fiercely, waving an instructing finger in the air. “You know today’s the day the Emancipation Proclamation go into effect? Today Lincoln outlawed and freed the slaves in this very state.” He emphasized that last little bit with a flourish of his hand and a satisfied expression.
That Johnny knew this and Philip didn’t was no surprise. Johnny was by far the most outspoken man in the regiment when it came to slavery and fugitive slaves and what had to be done about it all. This was probably every abolitionist New England Yankee’s dream-come-true day, when someone had finally done something to make the blacks something other than an entity in legal limbo.
“I heard about the proclamation but didn’t think much would come of it. Didn’t seem to have much of an effect when it was issued after Antietam, and when we was in Corinth, Mississippi, there was a contraband camp there, and they didn’t seem to think much out of it. Think Lincoln was doing something more political than practical.” Philip paused to gauge Johnny’s reaction. He ended with a shrug. “But perhaps it might come to something someday if we force the Rebels to capitulate.”
“If today any indication of us doing that, it going to be a long, long year or more of fighting to bring it about,” Johnny said and tossed a stone angrily, hitting a nearby tree with a satisfying "thunk". “You know Father sent money to buy rifles for John Brown during the fighting in Kansas?”
Johnny waited a moment, as if he were really asking if Philip had heard. Of course he had; Johnny had told him dozens of times. But Philip merely shook his head as if he hadn’t.
Johnny continued, “Fill Kansas with abolitionist settlers and beat back the Missouri slavers. Rifles and Scriptures. We come west in 1855, you know. Made it all the way to Ohio before Father decided to settle in the river valley instead of continue on.”
&nb
sp; Johnny was in his storytelling mood and looking wistful, as if he were lost in his stories and not standing in a bloodied forest in Tennessee. “That’s when it started to get real bloody, and Brown was attacking proslavery houses with his sons. I think Father felt a little guilty for sending money after we heard that.”
“I think a lot of people was shocked by what was going on in Kansas, but not nearly enough to see what it was that Brown was going to eventually try to do. The man certainly drew the battle lines.”
“You talked to them Rebels? The ones you said you captured?” Johnny asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice, as if anyone who would talk to instead of shoot a Rebel was not in his right mind.
“For a spell. Decent fellows, though the lieutenant was a little rough. Not the child-eating monsters some like to make them out to be. Just men.”
Philip didn’t volunteer that one of them had been a slave hunter by trade—Johnny would have certainly assumed Philip was mad not to have strung the man up then and there.
“They say why they was fightin’?”
“We didn’t get much into it. The one was just a youth who was tiring of the life, and the other was . . .”
Philip paused, looking for the word to use to describe Will Hunter. Not an adventurer nor a zealot, just a man who was trying to prove something.
“The other was just trying to survive.”
Johnny was taken to looking at any and all Rebels as detestable slave holders. He might have fit right in with the near-mutiny in the 7th Ohio Cavalry’s camp when the troop had gathered to hang the man they blamed for killing one of their own, the twice-captured Rebel named Lewis Hopewell. Johnny would not have taken kindly to Philip’s standing up to the mob to spare the Rebel’s life until a fair trial could be had. Philip would keep that to himself as well.
Philip let the conversation lag as he remembered happier times with his old messmates. Johnny Henson was the only one left. That old guilt crept back—his seeking a chaplaincy and leaving his pards behind. Feeling his posterior becoming numb from sitting on a hard root of the tree he was propped up against, he stood up and waited for Johnny to do the same.
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 33